by Judy Keen, USA TODAY

by Judy Keen, USA TODAY

CHICAGO - Curtis Johnson cried when he heard that the public school where he works as a security guard and where two of his children are students will close at the end of this school year.

Johnson, 42, worries his children, ages 11 and 13, will have to "walk across gang-infested neighborhoods" to get to their new school. "I don't understand that," he says.

The announcement last week that Chicago Public Schools will close 54 schools before classes begin next fall is creating a furor.

Jesse Ruiz, vice president of the Chicago Board of Education, says the number of schools must be pared because many are underutilized because of a shrinking student population - the number of Chicago residents fell by 200,418 from 2000 to 2010 - and because the district faces a $1 billion budget shortfall.

About 30,000 children will be moved. Schools are currently equipped to accommodate 511,000 students; enrollment now is 403,000.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said this week that negotiations are over and plans to implement the closings are proceeding.

When the closures were announced, he said, "Keeping open a school that is falling short year in and year out means we haven't done what we are responsible for ... and what we owe every child."

A march this week that resulted in dozens of arrests will be followed by more protests, says Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. She says the union likely will sue to try to block the closures.

"This is a hurried, very, very poor policy," Lewis says. "It has not been thought out clearly."

Lewis says what's happening in Chicago has national implications.

"We're seeing school closings as a public policy," she says. "This is coming to a district near you."

Ruiz says the plan is "the culmination of months and months of work and listening to lots of input." There will be more community meetings and public hearings before the school board votes in late May.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the district's CEO, said this week that school consolidations "will allow us to safely move these children to a higher-performing, welcoming school near their home with all investments they need to thrive in the classroom."

The district has promised to expand a "safe passage" program that stations adults near schools to ensure students arrive and depart safely.

Larry Trotter, bishop of Sweet Holy Spirit Church on the city's South Side, was among a dozen pastors who wrote to Emanuel to ask him to reconsider the closings. "Let's press the pause button," Trotter says.

He worries that students in new schools will be more vulnerable to gang violence. "You cross a certain street where you don't live and somebody might hurt you," he says.

Democratic Alderman Scott Waguespack says a resolution will be introduced at the April 10 City Council meeting that would put closings on hold until the school district prepares a long-term master plan.

Caty Stillwell, 41, a second-grade teacher and mother of a fifth-grader at a North Side school that won't be affected by the closures, has two concerns: overcrowding and safety.

Mostly, she feels sad.

"It's affecting the whole city," she says, "and it just breaks my heart."